27 best free sites for NAP backlinks

Free directories still work. The catch is that maybe a third of the lists you'll find online point at dead sites. This one is trimmed to what we actually submit to, and we re-check it four times a year.

Tier 1: the eight that matter most

• Google Business Profile — the whole game for map results
• Apple Business Connect — feeds Apple Maps and Siri
• Bing Places — free, quick, and feeds Copilot answers
• Facebook Page — indexed and often ranks for brand searches
• Yelp — feeds Apple and Alexa, ranks for 'near me' queries
• Foursquare — still a data source for a surprising number of apps
• Better Business Bureau (free listing tier)
• Your chamber of commerce

Do these eight before anything else. They cover mapping data, which is why we treat them as the base of any maps backlinks build.

Tier 2: broad directories

• Hotfrog
• Brownbook
• Cylex
• Manta
• Superpages
• MerchantCircle
• Tupalo
• iBegin
• EZlocal
• ChamberofCommerce.com

None of these will win you a ranking alone. Together they form the consistency layer, and they're free. Budget about eight minutes each including email confirmation.

Check indexation before you spend an hour on a directory. Run a site: query with the directory's domain and a competitor's name. Nothing back means nothing gained.

Tier 3: local and niche

• Nextdoor Business
• Alignable
• Angi (free profile)
• Thumbtack
• Houzz — trades and interiors
• Healthgrades and Zocdoc — medical
• Avvo — legal
• TripAdvisor — food, lodging, attractions
• Yellow Pages regional editions

Trade-specific sites punch above their weight because the category match is exact. That's the argument for niche backlinks generally — relevance beats volume every time.

Sites worth skipping

Anything that asks for payment to stay listed, anything with a 2011 design and no HTTPS, and the auto-generated scraper directories that already have a profile of your business you can't claim. Also skip listing farms that publish 500 businesses per page.

How to work through the list

Use one dedicated email address on your own domain. Keep a sheet with site, URL, login, date and status. Do five a day rather than thirty in one sitting — the error rate on batch submissions is genuinely bad.

If the whole thing sounds like a chore, that's fair. It is one. Our directory backlinks service covers this list plus about a hundred more, or you can start with what are NAP backlinks to get the wording right before you submit anything.